In October 2020, 400 community members met online to discuss financial health, sustainability, and best business practices through a lens of diversity, equity, and social justice.
Programming addressed financial and legal issues as well as the broader context of defining and asserting value, solidarity, and the importance of community.
About the Event
37 speakers and 26 programs including: keynotes, artist interventions, panel conversations, discussion groups, workshops, and in-depth sessions centered around the theme of DEFINING VALUE(S).
How do we define value in the art world? How should our values influence resource allocation? How can we work toward greater equity and a solidarity economy?
Between the pandemic, protests, and the Zoomification of our world, 2020 marks a pivotal moment in cultural development. Crisis threatens the very nature of what many of us do, yet it also affords us a moment to stop, think, and assess the systems that have historically guided us. The current moment is an invitation to critique and rebuild the way in which we assign value, with our own values in mind.
Art World Conference addresses market-driven economic realities, while foregrounding creative solutions and the solidarity economy. Financial health, sustainability, and best business practices will be discussed through a lens of diversity, equity, and social justice. Programming will address many of the unique opportunities and challenges faced by visual artists, freelancers, and arts professionals. Topics include financial and legal issues ranging from sales, credit, investing, and licensing, to the broader context of defining and asserting value, solidarity, and the importance of community.
MC Dyalekt
MC, Playwright, Educator, Co-Founder of the Race & Wealth Podcast Network and See Change
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Eva Mayhabal Davis
Independent Curator, Co-Director at Transmitter, and Founder of El Salón (Cultural Partner)
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Helen Toomer
Co-Founder/Director of Stoneleaf Retreat and Co-Founder of Art Mamas (Cultural Partner)
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Supporters
Art Omi, Christa Blatchard, Stephanie Bradley, Sherri Brueggemann, Julia Clark, Lisa Draper, Ben Fino-Radin, Jill Gerson, Arianne Grimaldi, Elisa Jimenez, Sarah Kernohan, Julia Klein, Linda Lauro-Lazin, Corina Larkin, Mai Mabllab, Aldy Milliken, Nasim Mobasheri, Deborah Obalil, Rebecca Ochab, Ox-Bow, Renaud Proch, Steven Sergiovanni, Orly Shemesh, Erin Sircy, Amy Smith, Jane South, Kay Takeda, Paige West, Anna Westrick, Ben Whine, Allison Wyper
Courses
Amy Whitaker
Author, Faculty Member at New York University
Holding an MFA and an MBA, Amy studies the friction between art and business and proposes new structures to support economic sustainability for artists. Her third book, Economics of Visual Arts, was published in the fall of 2021 with Cambridge University Press. Amy is also author of two other books, Museum Legs and Art Thinking. Serving on the arts administration faculty at NYU, Amy researches what would happen if artists retained equity in their work. Her work on fractional equity has appeared in Management Science (with Kraussl) in the "Fast Track" intended for "high-impact research that is of broad interest.”
Amy's work has been featured in The Guardian, Harpers, The Atlantic, the Financial Times, Artforum, and The Art Newspaper. Her early work with the artists' cooperative project Trade School was covered in the New York Times and The New Yorker. She speaks widely including at the Aspen Ideas Festival, Meaning Conference (Brighton, UK), and The Conference (Malmö, Sweden). She has taught at Williams College, the Rhode Island School of Design, the School of Visual Arts, and California College of the Arts, and is a past recipient of the Sarah Verdone Writing Award from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.
Image © Shieva Rezvani
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